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CHAPTER VII - PREFACE TO 'THE MASTER OF BALLANTRAE' (19)
ALTHOUGH an old, consistent exile, the editor of the
following pages revisits now and again the city of which he
exults to be a native; and there are few things more strange,
more painful, or more salutary, than such revisitations.
Outside, in foreign spots, he comes by surprise and awakens
more attention than he had expected; in his own city, the
relation is reversed, and he stands amazed to be so little
recollected. Elsewhere he is refreshed to see attractive
faces, to remark possible friends; there he scouts the long
streets, with a pang at heart, for the faces and friends that
are no more. Elsewhere he is delighted with the presence of
what is new, there tormented by the absence of what is old.
Elsewhere he is content to be his present self; there he is
smitten with an equal regret for what he once was and for
what he once hoped to be.
He was feeling all this dimly, as he drove from the station,
on his last visit; he was feeling it still as he alighted at
the door of his friend Mr. Johnstone Thomson, W.S., with whom
he was to stay. A hearty welcome, a face not altogether
changed, a few words that sounded of old days, a laugh
provoked and shared, a glimpse in passing of the snowy cloth
and bright decanters and the Piranesis on the dining-room
wall, brought him to his bed-room with a somewhat lightened
cheer, and when he and Mr. Thomson sat down a few minutes
later, cheek by jowl, and pledged the past in a preliminary
bumper, he was already almost consoled, he had already almost
forgiven himself his two unpardonable errors, that he should
ever have left his native city, or ever returned to it.
'I have something quite in your way,' said Mr. Thomson. 'I
wished to do honour to your arrival; because, my dear fellow,
it is my own youth that comes back along with you; in a very
tattered and withered state, to be sure, but - well! - all
that's left of it.'
'A great deal better than nothing,' said the editor. 'But
what is this which is quite in my way?'
'I was coming to that,' said Mr. Thomson: 'Fate has put it in
my power to honour your arrival with something really
original by way of dessert. A mystery.'
'A mystery?' I repeated.
'Yes,' said his friend, 'a mystery. It may prove to be
nothing, and it may prove to be a great deal. But in the
meanwhile it is truly mysterious, no eye having looked on it
for near a hundred years; it is highly genteel, for it treats
of a titled family; and it ought to be melodramatic, for
(according to the superscription) it is concerned with
death.'
'I think I rarely heard a more obscure or a more promising
annunciation,' the other remarked. 'But what is It?'
'You remember my predecessor's, old Peter M'Brair's
business?'
'I remember him acutely; he could not look at me without a
pang of reprobation, and he could not feel the pang without
betraying it. He was to me a man of a great historical
interest, but the interest was not returned.'
'Ah well, we go beyond him,' said Mr. Thomson. 'I daresay
old Peter knew as little about this as I do. You see, I
succeeded to a prodigious accumulation of old law-papers and
old tin boxes, some of them of Peter's hoarding, some of his
father's, John, first of the dynasty, a great man in his day.
Among other collections were all the papers of the
Durrisdeers.'
'The Durrisdeers!' cried I. 'My dear fellow, these may be of
the greatest interest. One of them was out in the '45; one
had some strange passages with the devil - you will find a
note of it in Law's MEMORIALS, I think; and there was an
unexplained tragedy, I know not what, much later, about a
hundred years ago - '
'More than a hundred years ago,' said Mr. Thomson. 'In
1783.'
'How do you know that? I mean some death.'
'Yes, the lamentable deaths of my lord Durrisdeer and his
brother, the Master of Ballantrae (attainted in the
troubles),' said Mr. Thomson with something the tone of a man
quoting. 'Is that it?'
'To say truth,' said I, 'I have only seen some dim reference
to the things in memoirs; and heard some traditions dimmer
still, through my uncle (whom I think you knew). My uncle
lived when he was a boy in the neighbourhood of St. Bride's;
he has often told me of the avenue closed up and grown over
with grass, the great gates never opened, the last lord and
his old maid sister who lived in the back parts of the house,
a quiet, plain, poor, hum-drum couple it would seem - but
pathetic too, as the last of that stirring and brave house -
and, to the country folk, faintly terrible from some deformed
traditions.'
'Yes,' said Mr. Thomson. Henry Graeme Durie, the last lord,
died in 1820; his sister, the Honourable Miss Katherine
Durie, in '27; so much I know; and by what I have been going
over the last few days, they were what you say, decent, quiet
people and not rich. To say truth, it was a letter of my
lord's that put me on the search for the packet we are going
to open this evening. Some papers could not be found; and he
wrote to Jack M'Brair suggesting they might be among those
sealed up by a Mr. Mackellar. M'Brair answered, that the
papers in question were all in Mackellar's own hand, all (as
the writer understood) of a purely narrative character; and
besides, said he, "I am bound not to open them before the
year 1889." You may fancy if these words struck me: I
instituted a hunt through all the M'Brair repositories; and
at last hit upon that packet which (if you have had enough
wine) I propose to show you at once.'
In the smoking-room, to which my host now led me, was a
packet, fastened with many seals and enclosed in a single
sheet of strong paper thus endorsed:-
Papers relating to the lives and lamentable deaths of the
late Lord Durisdeer, and his elder brother James, commonly
called Master of Ballantrae, attainted in the troubles:
entrusted into the hands of John M'Brair in the Lawnmarket of
Edinburgh, W.S.; this 20th day of September Anno Domini 1789;
by him to be kept secret until the revolution of one hundred
years complete, or until the 20th day of September 1889: the
same compiled and written by me,
Ephraim Mackellar,
For near forty years land steward on the estates of his lordship.
As Mr. Thomson is a married man, I will not say what hour had
struck when we laid down the last of the following pages; but
I will give a few words of what ensued.
'Here,' said Mr. Thomson, 'is a novel ready to your hand:
all you have to do is to work up the scenery, develop the
characters, and improve the style.'
'My dear fellow,' said I, 'they are just the three things
that I would rather die than set my hand to. It shall be
published as it stands.'
'But it's so bald,' objected Mr. Thomson.
'I believe there is nothing so noble as baldness,' replied I,
'and I am sure there is nothing so interesting. I would have
all literature bald, and all authors (if you like) but one.'
'Well, well,' said Mr. Thomson, 'we shall see.'
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